It only takes a split second of oversight and the world can come crashing down on your head – or rather Beastie’s – and there’s absolutely nothing in your power to prevent it from happening.
I’ve only gone and done it again haven’t I? Beastie is wedged tightly against a huge tree. He’s unbudgeable. I step down to assess. What’s this? I’m wearing a long thigh hugging ruby red dress? It wildly accentuates my shape. It’s chilly, but fortunately I’m also wearing the fleecy blue and khaki checked lumberjack shirt that Mary-Ann bought me for Christmas. It barely covers my silhouetted credentials. I stagger towards the tree. I’m ankle deep in sand and suddenly I’m wearing matching stilettos. It’s absurdly weird. Yet somehow feels completely normal. I feel a thousand eyes searing into the back of my neck like burning embers and acutely exposed. Oh no. My shoulder length shiny brown hair. It’s not covered. It’s Ramadan. Miraculously my hair is now hidden. My turban bound head makes me look like Pierce Brosnan in The Deceivers. I turn and take in the gaze of the disapproving onlookers. They are dogs. Hundreds of them. All shapes and sizes. Lined up like soldiers on a parade ground waiting for inspection. Only it’s me that’s being inspected. They’re all wearing expectant faces. How’s he going to get himself out of this mess then? Now I’m at the foot of the tree. I have a huge axe ready. I swing with all my force. Like a child’s rubber hammer it rebounds and almost wraps itself around my waist. I try again. Same result. The dogs start howling, hyena like. “It’s not funny!” I scream. Then I’m holding a chain saw. It does the trick. But there’s a but. A big but. The huge tree crashes down with almighty force. Smashing into the roof of Beastie. He splits in half. In unison the dogs raise themselves up on their back legs and applaud . . . .
. . . without warning I’m brought back to consciousness and reality by the resounding crack of thunder overhead and the splattering raindrops bouncing on Beastie’s roof. I lie for sometime going over what my “other-half” has concocted for me while I’ve been asleep. Fragments of the past, mixed mosaically with invention. In that split second seeming so real. I ponder. Slowly tracing the events of the last few days and before. Illuminating my sleeping mind’s view. Discovering where the ideas sprang from. Some pieces from our journeys. Some from the film we watched. Others from the book I’m reading. Not everything fits neatly into place though. I’m left wondering. Do I really have secret yearnings to be a transvestite lumberjack?
We’re in Fes. A short 80K journey sees us arrive earlier than usual. It’s FA Cup Final day. My BBC account doesn’t stretch this far. Ends at the EU border. No chance to close the curtains and shut the world out. We take a stroll around a new “posh” estate. Some houses wouldn’t seem out of place in Sandbanks.
Earlier, the highlight of our journey was the poppy and wild flower filled fields. The sight brought back memories of Flanders and Co. We reflect that even this mass of poppies doesn’t get anywhere near the number of lives lost.
We have a guide (we think/hope he’s a guide) organised for our trip into town tomorrow. Should be fun.